The best fitness trackers for every type of person

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Fitbit

Fitness trackers are the tech world's way of giving back. For all the laziness our laptops and smart TVs may inspire, fitness trackers are one of the few gadgets that'll only improve your quality of life when used right. They aren't going to trim the fat for you, but the growing range of statistics they compile about your body can motivate you to adapt a healthier lifestyle, then give you a plan of action to make it happen.

The problem is that there's a lot of them. And although fitness trackers are more established than their smartwatch cousins, there isn't one that gets everything right. There are a few that get close to being a catch-all solution, but generally speaking, shopping for a fitness tracker means finding what's best for your needs.

Any device worth its salt should have some reliable blend of comfort, stat tracking accuracy, lengthy battery life, and useful features. Being inexpensive doesn't hurt. If you use one feature way more than others, though, you may want to buy a device that specializes in that particular area.

To save time in your search, we've done just that. After reading up on all the trackers on the market and putting in some hands-on testing of our own, we found the seven following fitness trackers to be worthy of your consideration. We've split them up by need, and per usual, we've assigned them a BI Rating. Check here to see how that works.

We're generally aiming this guide toward everyday people looking to keep up on their health. That means we tried to keep them relatively affordable, too. Still, all of them should prove useful to the right person.

Update (4/19/16): We've tested a number of new trackers since this guide was published, and will have a full refresh of this guide in the near future. For now, though, we still recommend the Fitbit Charge HR for most people.

Keeping the caveats above in mind, if we had to pick one fitness tracker for ordinary people looking to improve their overall health, we'd choose the Fitbit Charge HR. This shouldn't be too surprising: Manyothersin thispositionhave said the same. That's not an accident, though, as the Charge HR finds a splendid mix of features, ease of use, battery life, and price.

The Charge HR is more accurate than most wrist-worn devices at tracking simpler things like steps and sleep metrics, and it measures the latter automatically. It's relatively comfortable, and it typically gets anywhere from five to seven days on a single battery charge. It has a tidy little display that gives you visual feedback as you're moving along — and shows caller ID when connected to your phone — as well as a silent alarm that lets you get up for morning jogs without waking your partner.

It also features an integrated sensor that continuously tracks your heart rate (hence the "HR"). That struggles to stay accurate during active workouts, but for measuring your resting heart rate (a useful gauge of general health), it's fine. Aiding all of this is Fitbit's wonderfully intuitive app and website, which make all the data the Charge HR collects easy to process, and offer a bunch of simple yet motivating challenges to get you going.

While it would be nice for the Charge HR to be waterproof (instead of just water-resistant) and a bit more accurate for intense sessions, it does more than enough things right to justify its price point.

You won't find many fancy displays and advanced stats on the affordable end of the fitness tracker market, but you can find a few tools that'll help you get in shape. If you want to start making your waistline as tight as your budget, Jawbone's Up Move is a dependable entry-level option. It tracks sleep, steps, calories burned and the like with solid accuracy, then syncs all of that data to iOS or Android devices over Bluetooth. From there, you can keep tabs on it all in Jawbone's intuitive Up app, which can analyze how well you're eating and share your progress with friends as well. The whole thing is rated at about six months of battery life per charge.

The Up Move is a clip-on tracker on its own, but you can also slot it into an optional wrist strap. Like the Charge HR, it's also only splash-resistant, so you won't be able to reliably use it in the pool or shower. Still, for the money it saves you, it provides enough stats to get you working toward results, without making a dent in your wallet.

If you're already a sporty type and want a tracker that'll keep up across different activities, the Garmin Vivoactive does the job. It's something resembling a smartwatch, capable of displaying basic notifications or controlling music from any Bluetooth-connected Android or iOS device, though that's more of a nice bonus than anything else.

The device's main hook is its set of multisport tracking modes, which measure specific metrics for a given activity. It has apps for running, cycling, swimming, and golfing — so if you were to take it to the pool, for instance, you could set it to Swim mode and have it count time, distance, and stroke count.

Garmin has its own app store for more modes like this (though it can be buggy on occasion), and the device itself has GPS built-in to make running measurements more accurate. It's waterproof as well, and its battery can last anywhere from a week to three weeks depending on how hard you push it.

This is a slim and comfortable wearable, but it's a bit drab-looking next to the smartwatches it takes after. It also lacks an optical heart rate monitor — if you want one of those, you'll have to pay extra for a companion device that straps onto your chest — and its sleep tracking is generally underwhelming. On the whole, though, this is a versatile, mainstream device for most people who consider themselves athletic.

Moov CEO Meng Li has said that her company doesn't make fitness trackers, but wearable personal trainers. It's hard to disagree after spending a few workouts with its self-titled device. The Moov might be the most motivating device on this list, thanks to the remarkably useful feedback it provides during your activities. We're highlighting it for runners, since it's particularly helpful there, but it also measures your performance for things like boxing, swimming, and cycling.

The idea here isn't to give you a huge list of metrics during your runs, but to turn you into a better runner in general. The little device straps around your ankle or wrist and uses a built-in accelerometer and your smartphone's GPS to determine how you're moving, both in terms of metrics and overall form. Through its companion app, the Moov then gives you little tips and bits of motivation ("Straighten your back," "You can do it") as you're moving along. You can have it coach you to run faster, further, or just more efficiently, and the app presents the results of each workout in a way that's both easy to read and, crucially, easy to act upon.

The Moov itself is cheap-feeling, and the fact that it requires you to run with your smartphone might be annoying. But very few trackers take this much initiative in helping you exercise not just more often, but more intelligently. Even if it doesn't track as many stats as a GPS watch like the Garmin Forerunner 225, the Moov is just as serious about improving your running game. It's also affordable. It's important to note that a successor, the Moov Now, is currently up for pre-orders, but for now, the original is still a great tool for everyday joggers.

As a general fitness tracker, the Basis Peak is hit or miss. It's easily one of the most ambitious wearables on the market, with its continuous heart rate monitor, smartwatch-style notifications, and ability to automatically tell when you're sleeping or exercising. It's waterproof, too, and it measures a truckload of metrics, from basic steps to things like your current skin temperature.

It's too often inaccurate in measuring all that data, though — the heart rate monitor isn't particularly impressive during workouts — and, without any buttons, the device itself is difficult to navigate when you're on the move.

The Peak does (mostly) nail it, however, when you're not moving. If you mostly want something that measures your sleep, and you can put up with its fidgety activity tracking, the Peak is both accurate and detailed when you're unconscious. Its quartet of sensors can tell you how long you've been out, as well as how long you've spent in REM and deeper sleeping states.

Its app, while not the cleanest around, does give you helpful goals that'll help you get healthier rest. The Peak itself isn't a burden to wear in bed either. And again, it does all of this automatically; just go to bed and it does the rest. It can annoyingly confuse simple inactivity with being passed out, but when everything falls into place, the Peak does this one function very well.

If you only need the basics from your fitness tracker, but you want something that'll look nice on your wrist throughout the day, check out the Withings Activite Pop. It's a watch above all else — a rounded, comfortable one made of silicone, glass, and steel — but it still tracks steps, calories burned, sleep metrics, distance, and swims with decent accuracy. (It does much of that automatically, too.) It's water-resistant enough to wear comfortably in the pool, it has a silent alarm, and its battery is rated at an impressive 8 months of juice.

Its tracking isn't nearly as in-depth as similarly-priced devices (there's no heart-rate monitoring here), and the fact that it's a watch means you need to rely on Withings' often sluggish companion app, but in general it does a good job of consolidating functionality and style in a single package. Look at it as a watch first and it becomes a practical choice for many people. If you're willing to splurge, though, its bigger sibling, the Activite, adds more premium build materials for $300 more.

You don't need to have something constantly strapped around your wrist to help yourself stay fit. The Fitbit One tracks steps, calories, distances, stairs climbed, and basic sleep metrics, and because it can be attached anywhere, it's generally more accurate than a wrist-worn tracker. (Your wrists aren't always active when exercising, after all.) It looks nicer than the Jawbone Up Move above, and it features both a display and a silent alarm. It now syncs with a wide range of devices, and uses the same great Fitbit software as the Charge HR. It also lasts about 10 days on a single charge, which is solid for this kind of device.

A clip tracker is much easier to misplace than a larger, more featured device, sure, but it's also more convenient to wear around. In this case, it's more affordable, too. The One has been immensely popular for a few years now, but it's still an excellent choice for anyone who can get by without advanced stats and values something discreet.

Pros:

Compact and portable

More accurate than wrist-worn trackers

Includes altimeter and silent alarm

Cons:

Not as featured as larger devices

Easier to lose something this small

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